This chapter provides an overview of how to use
SQL to perform simple
operations. This tutorial is only intended to give you an
introduction and is in no way a complete tutorial on
SQL. Numerous books have been
written on SQL, including
Understanding the New
SQL and A Guide to the SQL Standard. You should be aware that
some PostgreSQL language
features are extensions to the standard.

In the examples that follow, we assume that you have created a
database named mydb, as described in the
previous chapter, and have been able to start psql.

Examples in this manual can also be found in the PostgreSQL source distribution in the
directory src/tutorial/. (Binary
distributions of PostgreSQL
might not compile these files.) To use those files, first change
to that directory and run make:

$cd ..../src/tutorial$make

This creates the scripts and compiles the C files containing
user-defined functions and types. Then, to start the tutorial, do
the following:

$cd ..../tutorial$psql -s mydb...mydb=>\i basics.sql

The \i command reads in commands from
the specified file. psql's -s option puts you in single step mode which
pauses before sending each statement to the server. The commands
used in this section are in the file basics.sql.